Xcelsius helps build some really visually appealing dashboards in SharePoint

I have been using Xcelsius for some time now to build some visually appealling dashboards to be published on Corporate Intranet.

Xcelsius is a powerful product from SAP (http://www.sap.com/solutions/sapbusinessobjects/sme/reporting-dashboarding/index.epx) which can help you build dashboards for the following scenarios:

1. If you have a web service built to fetch data from any data source, you can build connections in Xcelsius to use the data and dump it into an excel spreadsheet. Other data sources like xml and direct link to database can also be configured.

2. Excel interface in Xcelsius helps you perform complicated calculations.

3. Build in visual components in xcelsius like dashboards, maps, tables, graphs etc can be configured to visually display the data or use calculcated values from any columns, rows or cells in excel to display rich dashboards.

4. You can export these dashboards in flash .swf format and store them in a document library. These can be shown on any page with a simple content editor web part and this simple code: <EMBED height=773 type=application/x-shockwave-flash width=1024 src=http://sharepointsite/Document library URL/Dashboard.swf> </EMBED>

5. Remember not to build too many queries (web service or otherwise) on the first load. This will result in a page which takes ages to load and your web service engine to be heavily utilised.

6. SharePoint connector can help you display data using web part connections.

7. You can even create dashboard which does queries based on user input.

The possibilities are endless – and can be unlocked by your imagination. Go and download Xcelsius. Even if you are not using Business Objects as BI platform in your company, the client (desktop) version of this product s not expensive. Try it now!

Some of the examples of the dashboards produced by me are shown below (I have removed some of the sensitive data but you will get the picture):

SharePoint 2010 Hands on Day

SharePoint Alerts Stop Working Intermittently

We have been facing problem with SharePoint alerts for quite some time. The Alerts stop working all-together intermittently. We normally were able to restart it by starting the timer service on all servers in the farm and disabling and enable the ‘Immediate Alert’ timer job.

The steps given below solved the problem ultimately (please backup the database and make an image of the server before you proceed):

1)    Reset the service accounts password – http://support.microsoft.com/kb/934838 – do all the steps except #6c. Just re-enter the same passwords – don’t change the passwords.

2)    Do IISRESET after the above changes.

3)    Run stsadm -o execadmsvcjobs

4)    Check if there are emails in dropbox (C:\Inetpub\mailroot\Drop)

5)    Redo the Clear Cache process again.

1. Stop the OWSTIMER service on ALL of the MOSS servers in the farm.
2. On the Index server, navigate to:                          

                                          i.    Server 2003 location: Drive:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\SharePoint\Config\GUID and delete all the XML files from the directory. 

                                         ii.    Server 2008 location: Drive:\ProgramData\Microsoft\SharePoint\Config\GUID and delete all the XML files from the directory.

1. Delete all the XML file in the directory. NOTE: ONLY THE XML FILES, NOT THE .INI FILE.
2. Open the cache.ini with Notepad and reset the number to 1. Save and close the file.
3. Start the OWSTIMER service on the Index server and wait for XML files to begin to reappear in the directory.

6)    Create an example alert and try if this solves the problem.

Clare has also shared a very interesting site which can help you troubleshooting alert issues : http://sharepointalert.info Check out this flowchart here: http://sharepointalert.info/troubleshooting-sharepoint-alerts/

Knowledge Management in Corporate Environment

Its been a while since I Blogged. I apologise to all.

I have been very interested recently in the Knowledge Management initiative in our company. We are in very initial stages and identified SharePoint as the central platform for KM. Don’t be fooled though, as technology is just a small part of the larger KM programme. Culture, processes, training are amogst some of the other areas which are encapsulated in the KM world.

I recommend the following books for those who are interested:

-> Managing Knowledge to fuel growth (harvard business school press)

-> Harvard Business Review on Knowledge Management (HBS Press)

-> The Complete Idiot’s guide to Knowledge Management

-> The Knowledge Management Toolkit (Amrit Tiwana)

For those who are interested in connecting with other acedemics, companies, students (from NSW Australia), interested in KM, following blog is recommended: http://nswkmforum.wordpress.com/

Export Files to SharePoint Document library from Business Objects and Adobe LiveCycles

Apart from Sharepoint, our company has also implemented other Workflow and Business Intelligence tools:

·         Adobe Lice Cycles Server – To manage electronic forms and workflow

·         Business Objects XI – To generate business Intelligence reports for Finance and Operations

 

Business Requirement:

·         Store the completed Adobe LiveCycles Form in SharePoint Document library and make is searchable.

·         Export the Business Objects report to SharePoint Document library and publish it on sharepoint.

 

We achieved this simply by following the steps below:

1.       Go to document library and open it in the windows explorer view. Copy the UNC path for the explorer view which will go something like this //<sharepoint_server>/<site..>/<site.>/<Document_library>/

2.       Go to Business Objects and Adobe server and start the web client service. This service is needed to access and modify internet based files (sharepoint doc library).

3.       In the business objects, schedule the report to be exported to a file location. Provide the UNC location, copied earlier.

4.       To export from Adobe livecycle, you can export the file to a UNC location at any step in the workflow (sorry don’t have any screen shots).

 

You can get the following advantages from Sharepoint:

·         SharePoint search facility (to locate a particular type of report or form)

·         Version control to browse the older version of the same report or form. SharePoint actually stores a new file with same name as a new version of the document (you of course need the versioning turned on).

Excel services can be used to publish report to a SharePoint page (this should be updated with the latest version).